Does the Media Hate You? And Other Questions.

I'm not sure what Clark Hoyt, Public Editor at the Times, thinks he's doing.  He seems to be operating under the bizarre assumption that if the paper is going to smear a presidential candidate, claim he could be assassinated for dubious reasons, and do it all based on an interpretation of Islamic law, then maybe someone should pick up the phone and actually see whether real Islamic scholars agree with any of the claptrap.  Strangely enough, Hoyt learns, contra Edward Luttwak, that Barack Obama will probably not get killed if he travels to a Muslim country.  Oops.

It's an embarrassment for the Times, to be sure, but allow me a couple more substantive observations.

First, this is an extreme example of a problem that runs throughout the traditional news media -- namely, the unwavering and unquestioned reliance on pundit-generalists.  In this particular case, no one had any reason to believe that Luttwak knew anywhere close to enough to opine on Islamic theology, but he's a well-known writer and works at a major think tank, so if he could write it well, he could get it published.  Now, I happen to think the generalist model is problematic.  All else equal, I would prefer to read experts or quasi-experts write about complicated subjects.  (I would count a journalist who focuses heavily in a specific area as a "quasi-expert" of sorts.)  One defense of the system you occasionally hear is, essentially, that it's more democratic -- in theory, anyone can write about anything -- but in practice, I find it to be terribly anti-democratic.  We see the same relatively small group of pundits and journalists writing frequently and all over the place on topics about which they know little (or nothing).

But even if you like the generalist model (or want to make it better), the problem becomes a very basic one: good fact-checking.  The Times has always been pretty opaque about the extent of the fact-checking that occurs on its op-ed page, but at a minimum, I would say that if you have someone writing outside of their area of expertise, you need to check with some actual experts to make sure the argument is sound. In this case, Hoyt writes, "Luttwak’s article was vetted by editors who consulted the Koran, associated text, newspaper articles and authoritative histories of Islam. No scholars of Islam were consulted because 'we do not customarily call experts to invite them to weigh in on the work of our contributors,' he said."  But of course, the Times' editors probably know as much about Islamic theology as Luttwak does, so having them "check" Luttwak's work was a useless exercise.  How do you even know how to fact-check a piece like Luttwak's without the benefit of some expertise?

All that said, I think it's a bit much to suggest, as Matthew Yglesias does, that "[a]s means of acquiring information, [papers like the Times are] useless -- the editors are indifferent to whether the author's purpose is to inform or to mislead."  Of course, if this were completely true, Clark Hoyt's position wouldn't exist, and he certainly wouldn't be getting prime, Sunday op-ed real estate every other week to write whatever he wants no matter how bad it makes the paper look.

As a general matter, the most compelling critiques of the media tend to be the ones that focus on structural and institutional factors.  I don't believe that David Shipley is uninterested in the factual claims of his op-ed contributors, but I do believe that the system in which he operates is a flawed one, which leads to embarrassing episodes like this one as well as more modest breaches of the readers' trust that occur far too frequently.  It would be ridiculous to rule out bad faith when doing media criticism, but I find that to be an unfruitful starting point. 

After all, why does the logic of bad faith stop at newspapers?  For instance, do I believe that James Bennet, the editor of The Atlantic, doesn't give a damn about his readers, or else he would immediately fire Andrew Sullivan and Jeffrey Goldberg for their demonstrable history of outright hackery?   (They have, after all, kept up the silliness under Bennet's watch.)  Do I think that Bennet is out to actively make us all stupider when he runs insipid cover packages on the "100 Most Influential Americans"?  Sometimes, yes!  But after you think about these sorts of questions for a while, you usually settle on more unexciting explanations -- like, for instance, that Sullivan and Goldberg are known quantities in Washington journalism; that they operate in an elite print journalism club where real competition on the merits of your work is lacking; and that they're skillful enough writers that they can attract readers even if what they're writing is, in fact, junk.  To be sure, these sorts of explanations can still be highly problematic, but they're problematic in a different way -- and require different responses -- than explanations that assume editors are out to screw you.

Comments

[Hana York]

Can I get an Allahu akbar? (aka, Preach it, brother!)

[Matt Weiner]

I think what Yglesias was actually saying was that the op-eds in the NYT and WaPo are useless as a means of acquiring information, not that the whole papers are. And I think that's pretty much true in a sense. That is, if all you know is that something appears on the Op-Ed page then you can't acquire any information from it. Getting things right is up to the individual author. If you have some reason to believe the individual author cares about getting the facts right, and can, then you can gain information from it. For instance, I think Bob Herbert usually gets facts right, Krugman tends to get things not associated with Obama right, Nick Kristof I believe often gets things not associated with American liberals right (I mean, he's right about obstetric fisulae, he's wrong about how much attention American feminists pay to them), with most of the other op-ed columnists you're better off believing the opposite of what they say. There may also be someone who's a real expert that you can get information from -- good on you if you can tell. Otherwise you're buying a pig in a poke, because the editors aren't going to make sure that the writer has the facts right if the writer hasn't taken that individual initiative. Whether this is because of indifference or somethign about the system isn't important.

And I don't think that the existence of the Public Editor proves the editors care about getting things right. The Times formed the position after being embarrassed by Jayson Blair; and if Clark Hoyt cares about actually fact-checking their articles, it's his own individual initiative, because the first public editor sure didn't. And the Washington Post's ombudsman is a notorious joke.

Also: "For instance, do I believe that James Bennet, the editor of The Atlantic, doesn't give a damn about his readers, or else he would immediately fire Andrew Sullivan and Jeffrey Goldberg for their demonstrable history of outright hackery?" Sure, and Hitchens and McArdle too (glad to see that Steyn is gone). I'm certainly going to treat everything else I read in the Atlantic more skeptically because they print these people, unless it's someone I specifically trust like Yglesias, Langeweische, or Fallows.

[Matt Weiner]

This is kind of a topic of mine.

And of course you're right on the main points -- Luttwak's op-ed was an embarrassment, it's a shame that they don't talk to experts on the subject, and this:

Luttwak said the scholars with whom I spoke were guilty of “gross misrepresentation” of Islam, which he said they portrayed as “a tolerant religion of peace;” he called it “intolerant.”

is flabbergasting. Dude didn't set off any red flags?

[Sir Charles]

Matt W.

You're concern with truth is quaint. Touching really. But we're in the post-reality period. Ask any conservative -- or right wing op-ed writer.

[Ankush]

Matt W:

Thanks for the detailed reply! A couple points. First, I agree that it's true across many media platforms that your ability to get something factually accurate is tied to the author's initiative. But why is it that if that the Times gets something wrong, it matters and we can speculate about them being malicious, but if the Atlantic -- or Matthew Yglesias -- gets something wrong, somehow it's different? I'm tempted to say we've developed different standards, but I think it's just that there are certain people we're disposed to trust, and others that we aren't. The fact of the matter is that generalists, wherever they publish, are going to be out of their depth 90% of the time.

As to the position of the Public Editor, I'm aware of how it was created. But if the Times wanted these people to be powerless, it wouldn't have given them all the power that it did. (And I really do think you have to ponder this for it to sink in: The public editors are overseen, effectively, by no one. They can completely trash the paper if they want.) I'm not going to defend Okrent's performance in his last column -- and I'm on record as saying that ombudsmen, Okrent included, are generally overrated -- but the independence that the paper created comes with the probability that its public editors will make errors. I don't like it, but I think it's misguided to argue that the position of the public editor evinces anything but a desire (however problematically executed) to maintain the trust of readers.

[Matt Weiner]

Thanks for the thoughtful response, Ankush! I think one of the issues here is that there are two different problems: what should we do as passive consumers of newspapers, trying to form beliefs about the world; and how can newspapers be made better. I'm thinking more about the first problem, what I can get from the papers, and for that problem it's not so important why these op-eds are getting the facts wrong, it's important that they do. But if you're concerned with how to fix the papers (a more important problem, if one I can do less about), then it is important why they're getting things wrong; if it's bad faith, that calls for a different solution than if it's structural or institutional factors.

So we're kind of focusing on two different parts of Yglesias's quote, I think. When Yglesias says, "[a]s means of acquiring information, [big paper op-eds] useless -- the editors are indifferent to whether the author's purpose is to inform or to mislead," I'm focusing on the first half -- I do think that they're very often useless* -- whereas, as your post title says, you're focusing on the second half, are they indifferent? Which is fair enough. And you've been doing a good job of getting media folks to hear your voice, so more power to you for thinking through the structural/institutional factors. (I looooove the factCheck idea, as long as it doesn't turn into this.)

I've got more to say -- about why I'm more forgiving of Yglesias, and whether I think that the media is sometimes acting in bad faith, and how much power I think the Public Editor has -- but I'll put that in another post.

*Well, actually, looking at the author bio helps; Luttwak's read "Edward N. Luttwak, a fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, is the author of 'Strategy: The Logic of War and Peace,'" which is conspicuously not "Edward N. Luttwak is someone who knows shit about Islam." I think I always check the bio....

[Joe Klein's conscience]

Ankush:
If the Public Editor had any real power, they'd be able to fire hacks like Kristol. Sadly, they don't.

[Matt Weiner]

JKc has anticipated what I was going to say about the Public Editor's power. They have a lot of freedom, but they can't do anything to guarantee the accuracy of the reporting. If you read Luttwak at the time you wouldn't have had the benefit of Hoyt's column; and even in retrospect, Hoyt was only able to fact-check one particularly outrageous column out of the many pieces that were written during the time. (And blogs and letters to the editor got there first.)

As for why I'm more forgiving of Yglesias -- there is a double standard here. Yglesias is a blogger, while the Times is supposed to be the Paper of Record. Yglesias acknowledges up front that he isn't always completely well-informed (BTW, one of the reasons I dislike McArdle is that her great skill is sounding like she knows what she's talking about); but anything printed in the NYT has the air of authority. Lots of people have pointed out that blogospheric triumphalism is completely off-base with respect to reporting -- most reporting is going to be done by full-time professionals with support staffs -- but reasonable with respect to op-eds; there's no reason to think the people writing op-eds have better opinions than the people you can find for yourself on the internet. So this is partly a matter of dragging the NYT op-eds down to everyone else's level; everyone knows Yglesias isn't fact- (or spell-) checked.

Also, I think the particular mistake of Yglesias's is much smaller than what the NYT did here. Yglesias exaggerated a pretty tossed-off post (David Brooks, at least, was praising the moderators' performance); the Times printed an op-ed that was poppycock from top to bottom by someone who rejects what actual experts say for ideological reasons. It's as if they hired a young-earth creationist to write for the Science Times. And it's worse that they specifically commissioned him to write this piece; it'd be one thing if he were a regular columnist with editorial freedom, but his only job here was to analyze Islamic law, and he was completely unqualified for it.

About bad faith: As I said before, that doesn't concern me quite as much, but there are a few cases where I really do have to ascribe bad faith. This one for instance -- that still makes me angry -- and the Times's delaying the illegal eavesdropping story until after the election (we see there the Public Editor's lack of power, btw; the editor and publisher wouldn't answer his questions), and the story of Bill Kristol's hiring shows nothing but indifference to accuracy. There have got to be systematic and institutional features here too, but what those factors produce here looks an awful lot like bad faith.

(That last link contains one of the all-time great sentences, btw: "You're entitled to your opinion, but, in all due respect, go fuck yourself.")